


Investment

by InfernalPume



Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Found Family, He's in denial, Origin Story, Sort Of, minor squick, well not to ruffik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 04:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20464922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfernalPume/pseuds/InfernalPume
Summary: Ruffik fancies himself a change in career, and is instead met with an increased staff.





	Investment

After months of radio silence, such a large reading was so unexpected Ruffik didn’t even consider its legitimacy. Bored and irritated, the genius had assumed a malfunction with his scanning equipment. It was only after several hard resets and the signal proved itself to be genuine that Ruffik was appropriately losing his mind.

So worried was the genius to miss the action he had knocked his rifle from his desk whilst fitting his holster and not bothered to pick it back up again. When he couldn’t fit his thick coat over his safety gloves and his DCR-Suit, the coat was discarded. So too were the snowshoes and the earmuffs. Barley dressed for the extreme conditions, Ruffik had prayed to the alchemy that just one sample would remain suitable for his uses by the time he arrived. Only seconds after disembarking his Golem malfunctioned and wouldn’t budge. Frustrated, he left it behind. Pushing through banks of stinging snow he desperately listened to make sure he wasn’t too late. And then he had arrived, and saw there was no need for concern.

The data was immense, excessive even.

Piles of it were haphazardly tossed into heaps. Hopeless and glassy white eyes aimed themselves to an impassive universe. Shades of pink and magenta stark and shiny against the ice. The stench of it all was enough to curl the eartips. Even to a professional, the sheer volume of data verged on the grotesque.

“Unfortunate.”

The between the weight of a frigid night’s sky and the vast expanse of snow and ice, Ruffik’s voice barely carried to the parameter of the settlement. It was lucky the withered asura spoke to no one in particular, as his words fell flat on the backs of frozen gore.

“_Very_ unfortunate.”

In his optimal scenario Ruffik had wanted to find samples from a small variety, but it was difficult to tell the race of some specimens. Quaggan of course stood out by their shape and stature, but many of the norn had died mid transformation and their frozen silhouettes matched those of the Goliath and Kodan Icebrood. A sylvari scout must have had a very bad day indeed, for Ruffik swore he could see plant matter beneath a mauler’s corrupted ice. The smaller more portable samples were disembodied limbs, impossible to classify.

Equipment Ruffik had brought along for the purpose of scouring the snow for flecks of corruption were repurposed, used instead to locate samples small enough to carry back to the lab. With his tiny scalpel, he was forced to saw off softer sections of flesh. His tweezers he pinched together like a pick to chisel out appropriate chunks of ice.

It was somewhere between prying off a toenail and accidentally shattering a brittle eyelid that Ruffik fancied himself a change of study.

Of course- that’s not what he told the Lionguard upon their thunderous arrival to the scene. His golem was broken, the attack was too far from his lab to properly transport the specimens, what do you mean you crazy bookahs want me to give back the samples for a _‘burial’_? Ruffik found all manner of things to complain about and still neglected to mention the fact he felt rather ill. The other things he dictated loudly to anyone who would listen, even fabricating a few just for flair. It didn’t quite matter that no one listened to his demands, Ruffik made sure to repeat them when explaining his involvement to their captain.

“I am a marine biologist, technically,” He said, “With a certain _fascination _with the icebrood’s effects on the local sea life.”

The captain, a grizzled old charr so scarred and ragged Ruffik couldn’t tell where his fur ended and coat began, growled out a warning before he spoke, “I meant why are you here _now._”

The accusatory glances were nothing new, almost welcome in their familiarity. One could not help but indulge in the performance.

“I got a signal from my radar,” he said, “I rushed over quickly, I was so sure your little brigade of moral Templars would sanitize the area before I reached it.”

Ruffik leveled his gaze at the construction of a pyre in the center of the site.

“And I was right.”

The metal gantlets of a soldier to the captain’s left _clinked _as the old norn made fists of his hands, the captain held up a claw before he could so much as step forward.

“So you’re just an opportunist here to pick at the dead like a vulture,” He growled.

“You say opportunist,” Ruffik said in a lazy drawl “I say _scientist._”

“And you intercepted a distress signal,”

“-Actually, it was my own sensor and it only detected movements of draconic magic.”

“…and presumably _forgot _to pass this signal on to the nearest stronghold?”

That hung in the air for a time, longer than Ruffik had expected it to. When Ruffik realized time was indeed still ticking on without his response, he was mortified to hear his own voice crack on the first word. He cleared his throat to try again, and realized he had nothing. For a few terrifying moments, he had _nothing._

He was saved by the accusing glances, or rather, the caricature they offered him.

“Like I said,” he managed to keep his voice from shaking, “I was afraid you’d destroy the contamination.”

Some ways away, the first of the funeral pyres went up in flames.

“And I was right.”

With that Ruffik pushed away. The captain would get nothing more out of him. The worst punishment he could receive would be a surprise inspection of his laboratory for shades of dark grey and the glow of red data crystals, of which he certainly had none. From an outside perspective, it seemed as though the asura didn’t even notice the small brigade that had amassed around the makeshift interrogation. In reality, the looks of disgust and anger awarded to his blatant disregard for the dead were more important to him than they could have known.

Just as Ruffik feared it would, the bodies of men, women, and children were cleared from the refugee encampment.

The grumpy asuran researcher who had been of no help at all lingered for some reason. He watched the soldiers as they sorted through scarce belongings and pitiful supplies. He might have offered his assistance in the equations to ease himself from the boredom.

Considering Icebrood had no use of things like grain and firewood the fact there was very little of both was an indication to the camp’s quality of life. A short walk around the perimeter gave Ruffik a rough estimate as to how many families could have reasonably been sheltered there. Just for reference, Ruffik speculated that he could have fit the entire camp within one of his subterranean warehouses.

Out of a casual interest he calculated how long a crowd of that size could stay there with the resources he currently had in supply. If Ruffik had chosen made himself useful, these calculates would be shared with the soldiers. He would have told them that had the need arose, his lab could have feasibly housed every family that now lay dead in the snow until spring at the very latest.

But Ruffik didn’t say that, he didn’t talk to anyone. After his walk and a fun little mental exercise there was no real reason to stick around. He needed to reclaim his supplies- he had dropped them in a heap when the Guard had arrived. Passing back through the camp in that direction another pyre sparked to flame. Ruffik watched it, watched the invaluable corrupted ice disappear in the flames.

Beneath his thick gloves, Ruffik’s fingers remembered how that eyelid had shattered beneath his scalpel.

For unrelated reasons, Ruffik very suddenly needed to be walking in a different direction. It wasn’t until the sun began to rise that someone felt the need to address the fact he was still here.

“I’ve lost my supplies.” He said, “And considering I lost them sometime after your captain demanded an interrogation, I demand to be compensated.”

“_What?_” It was a low ranking marksman who had evidently drawn the short straw, “No, you need to leave _now._”

Indignation finally bubbled up in Ruffik’s chest, and he drank greedily from its warmth.

“I’m not _asking,_” he sneered, “I am _demanding_. I have lost my supplies, my _livelihood, _do you know how hard it is to receive equipment this far north? I could be set back for _weeks_ due to your incompetence!”

A charr soldier hovered in the background, but Ruffik was too furious to be intimidated.

“I’ve lost my most valuable supplies! My scalpel, my test tubes, my gloves-“

The soldier blinked in confusion, her eyes glancing downwards.

“Sir, you’re _wearing _your gloves,” She said.

This caused Ruffik to pause. He looked down at his hands and indeed, there they were. That was some relief, he supposed. They were good gloves, nick and warm but still thin enough for his delicate work.

Thin enough that he had somehow felt each crack in the blistered skin beneath the leather.

Ruffik must have flinched, for when the soldier spoke it was with concern.

“Are you alright?”

Ruffik looked up at her through the haze, his hands bunching at his sides. Had he been wearing his gloves all this time? That was rather unhygienic, wasn’t it? He had just been handling raw dragon corruption, after all.

“I’m fine,” he spat, “All I want is for you _imbeciles _to return my-“

Ruffik, almost thoughtlessly, reached for his rifle. When his fingers passed through an empty space on his holster the feelings of rage and confusion finally met and ignited.

“My gun!” he cried whist being forcibly removed, “They _stole _my gun!”   


* * *

Without the promise of his supply or even a kind word, Ruffik was finally barred reentry to the camp under an unspoken threat of general unpleasantness. The last bit of patience for the grumpy old asura was the offer of an escort back to his lab, which was received about as well as any of them expected.

Ruffik marched away, unable to shake a sticky weight in his chest he hadn’t felt since his time as an apprentice. The chill cooled his rage, and in time humiliation curdled his fading adrenaline. The walk back over the tundra loomed in his mind, all Ruffik wanted to do was fall into a bed that lay across an impossible expanse of snow. He had lost his equipment, his dignity, and a good deal of his head to this debacle.

And when he had tried to pick it up the eyelid, it had all but disintegrated into a light dusting over that woman’s empty gaze.

_“Hooo!” _

Ruffik was all but ready to batter the next unfortunate twist of the night, and the Quaggan could see it on his face.

Fear flashed in those beady black eyes, before she scowled and stood firm. “Foo! How rude!”

Ruffik growled as he rubbed his temple, and would have moved on if not for her following behind him.

“Quaggan has the tadpoles!” She said, “Quaggan hid them away safe when she saw the Icebrood!”

“Good for Quaggan.” He said darkly.

“Noooo!” she cried, putting a webbed hand to her leathery cheek, “Quaggan knew a secret way out! Quaggan swam away with the tadpoles! Tadpoles are safe, where are the other survivors?”

“There aren’t any.” Ruffik said, a bit harder then perhaps was necessary.

The Quaggan recoiled, the cogs of her tiny mind clashing together until her face tilted upwards to see the smoke of funeral pyres curl in the sky.

“Fooooo…” she said, a sound more disappointed than mournful. Perhaps even a brainless Quaggan had understood the situation was dire.

They stood there together. The Quaggan did not address him directly, but there was a still a sense he was not yet excused. It was not uncommon for natives to the region to try and flag bystanders down for some impromptu meddling in their affairs. Quaggan especially seemed to have a cultural taboo against doing their own dirty work and relied entirely on the kindness of strangers. Unless he made a point to contest, Ruffik was trapped in the role of one such stranger. The Lionguard had their hands full and likely did not want to see him again and there wouldn’t be anyone else running along to sort this out. Ruffik sighed, there was nothing for it.

“How many of these ‘tadpoles’ are there?”

“Two!” The Quaggan said, “Too small to fight, so Quaggan swam away!”

While he likely should have been a bit depressed to learn there were only two survivors, Ruffik couldn’t help but appreciate the convenience.

“Too young to fight,” Ruffik repeated, “How old would you say, can they survive without their mother?”

“Ooooo,” the Quaggan scratched her chin, as if calculating lifespans of other races in her mind, “I think so.”

Ruffik’s forehead fell into his palm briefly before he looked mournfully to the large peaks between him and his lab. 

“Fine, fine,” He said, “Let me take a look at them.”

He was a scientist with a special interest in extreme conditions and though his subject had little in common with anthropology he was surely a greater authority than those nincompoops on the Lionguard. Ruffik had no particular _disdain _for small children and bookah children at least knew to be seen and not heard. Following a broody Quaggan and a pair of dumb infants back to some refuge or other wouldn’t be a problem so long as she didn’t expect him to touch the squirmy things.

So Ruffik followed behind the Quaggan to the edge of the frosted lake and tried not to look mortified at the thought of her plunging a pair of infants into their icy depths. Luckily when she returned she was butting a cradle through the water, the passengers inside warm as dry as one could be this far north. Ruffik nearly threw out his back pulling them to shore, why was it that all Bookahs this far north insisted upon being so _enormous? _

Pushing the heaps of blankets and furs aside, Ruffik knelt to inspect the pair in their seemingly perfect state of health for two norn of their age.

They couldn’t have been much older than a year at the most, their sleeping faces too pale and plump for them to be newborns. From their mirrored features and the gentle tufts of white-blonde hair poking out from their swaddling they could have been siblings, perhaps twins. Tugging at the seams of their blankets showed tiny chests that rose and feel to Ruffik’s satisfaction, the tiny thud off of a pulse could be felt through their chubby necks. It wasn’t possible to do a full analysis for dragon corruption or even frostbite without exposing them to the cold, and whilst they likely would have been fine in a normal blizzard Ruffik knew the Bitterfrost’s teeth could sink into even a norn.

Still, he was able to wrestle a tiny hand free, and very suddenly was taken aback. There are many aspects about the world one might assume through logical reasoning, though still finds them startling actually see. Moose, for example, are larger than one imagines in their mind, dung beetles smell awful, and babies- even _norn _babies, had the most freakishly small fingernails Ruffik had ever seen.

For a moment Ruffik forgot what he was looking for. He was so transfixed by the familiar appendage scaled to miniscule he gently bent and turned the wrist in awe. He wasn’t even sure if he was endeared or disturbed, it merely shocked him that he had not considered this before. The trance ended when the infant mumbled, Ruffik blinked and tucked the arm back against the child’s face before covering them both in furs once again.

There wasn’t much Ruffik was able to see with them swaddled as they were, but the light pink of their cheeks and heat emanating from the basket told him neither was in any immediate danger. Whilst a further inspection could be advised, that was something for the healers and shamans of Sorrow’s Eclipse to discern.

Ruffik rose to say as much to his companion, but the words took a while to come.

The Quaggan stared at him expectantly, his silence obviously worrying her. Ruffik cleared his throat.

“They appear to be in decent enough shape,” he said, “I’m no pediatrician, but I believe they are old enough to travel without their mother.”

The Quaggan sighed in relief and waddled forward to reclaim the basket, but Ruffik did not stand aside.

“Coo?”

“Hold on a moment,” he said, almost without thinking, “I’d like to take a better look.”

They were huddled together, gently touching heads as if in comfort. Definitely twins, they gravitated to each other even in sleep. Ruffik removed his glove to tuck a stray lock of hair back into the swaddling. The child’s face twitched, Ruffik could just make out his downy eyebrows, a lip that briefly curled, and a nose that wriggled under his cold touch.

“Is something wrong?” The Quaggan’s said, worry evident in her voice.

Ruffik shook himself from his stupor to regard her.

“…I think so,” he said, then looked down again.

This time it was the eyes that caught his attention, even closed as they were. So impossibly small on an impossibly small face… He barely noticed the gossamer thin lashes until he looked for them.

And then his gaze fell onto the creases of two tiny perfect eyelids closed in a tiny person’s perfect sleep.

“Go to the sanctuary,” Ruffik said, “I need you to find a shaman.”

“Oooo!” The Quaggaon cried, and wasted no time flopping into the water.   


Ruffik watched her go, the inky black depths merging with her camouflage. It was cold and bleak and dark down there, up here, and anywhere in the Bitterfrost frontier. There were so many horrible ways to die in a place like this, even without the icebrood attacking. Slowly Ruffik turned back to the basket. He thought of those little hands and faces, unwittingly compared them to the corpses of the camp.

His shoulders seized, as though some unseen hand gripped his neck.  
  


* * *

Landmarks were far and few between past the Bitterfrost Frontier. Even the slightest disturbance of snow cast long shadows across an otherwise bleak expanse. No cover, no shade, no shapes even remotely familiar to a native of the Maguuma Jungle. Only solemn towers of rock and ice obscured sunrise in the distance, the first droplets of morning light climbed and spilled from their impossible peaks as Ruffik followed his own footprints back to the lab.   
  
Somewhere along the journey Ruffik collided painfully with his busted golem, almost dropping one of his enormous bundles in the snow. The infant of that arm, the female, slept soundly even as Ruffik’s boot sloshed in his blood for the remainder of the journey.

The sun all but blinded by the time he made out the silhouette of his lab and he reasoned that this was a rather unambiguous kidnapping. It took him so long as to enter through his front door before he rationalized that it wasn’t as if there was anyone living for him to kidnap the twins _from. _

And what’s more- they were safer here than they would be in that circus of violence on the frontier. There was plenty of food and water and elixirs to guard against disease. What’s more, his golem had failed him so often ever since beginning his residency. The children would grow to be twice the size as his golem each, and in gratitude for his food, water, and elixirs no doubt they’d be happy to help him carry out his experiment’s. This was all very logical- No different than selecting an apprentice from Progeny Protective Services. Children were an _investment _after all, and survival in bleak environments relied on wise investments. So really, it was actually in his _best interest-_

He hadn’t made it half way to his bunk before one of the children woke up and began to screech, promptly waking and terrifying the other.

Holding both infants as they screeched and squirmed and made it very clear they didn’t want to be held was difficult, he set them down on the floor. The twins looked around their new surroundings and filled the lab with their cries. The sound was piercing and painful to Ruffik’s ears, the peaceful sleeping expressions a distant memory.

As he watched them scream and fight their swaddling, Ruffik thought to himself that this was a rational and very good idea.

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a complete story since I SUCK at updating- but the intro got so long I might have to split it up into parts. Or maybe just a one shot. Who knows.


End file.
